Skidding into trouble

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: the chemical SEZ to Nayachar. But there’s been little progress ever since the shift was announced. Also on the anvil are a multi-product SEZ spread over 12,500 acres in Haldia, industrial estates for small and medium enterprises in South 24-Parganas and East Midnapore districts.

Besides, there are infrastructure projects, including the Eastern Link Highway, a 100km, 4-lane expressway with upgrade to 6-lane, service roads, etc from Barasat in north to Raichak in south, along Kolkata’s eastern flank. Land required: 2,500 acres. It’s also developing three townships spread over 12,800 acres. While the Raichak-Kukrahati expressway has been put on hold due to land acquisition problems, the Salim Group has already acquired 13,000 acres for some of its projects, and needs to acquire 12,000 acres more.

Success stories

But for every Salim Group project that’s in a limbo, there are several success stories, like Videocon or JSW Steel. According to Assocham, two of the largest investment decisions in the state last year came from JSW, which said it would spend up to Rs 35,000 crore to set up a 10 million tonne per annum integrated steel plant at Salboni near Kharagpur, and the Videocon Group which announced a capex of Rs 15,000 crore to set up a steel and power plant project in the Asansol-Durgapur area in Burdwan district, creating 10,000 jobs. “Our Durgapur project is progressing nicely,” says Videocon Group chairman Venugopal Dhoot. “We have had little problem in acquiring land because perhaps we went directly to the farmers,” he adds. But that’s not to say that Sajjan Jindal, vice-chairman and MD, JSW Steel, and Assocham president is not fretting about the possible Tata pullout. “If the Tatas leave it will take West Bengal back to the 1970s when the state witnessed a large exodus of industry.”

Projects on the horizon

The worry perhaps stems from the fact that last year around 31 major investments were announced in West Bengal covering a span of two to 10 years with an aggregated cost of Rs 2,13,822 crore. According to Assocham, the steel sector attracted a 28% of investment announcements, amounting to Rs 56,400 crore. Besides, JSW and the Videocon Group, Jindal Steel, Jai Balaji Group and Adhunik Steel have lined up investments worth Rs 24,400 crore.